Bernie Ecclestone, the former owner of Formula 1's commercial rights, was detained on Monday at a Portuguese airport after police discovered he had brought a hunting shotgun into the country aboard his private plane without the proper documentation.
اضافة اعلان
Ecclestone, 95, told Reuters by phone from Portugal that he had brought the shotgun with him from Switzerland to take part in a clay pigeon shooting competition, but that he didn't have the official paperwork required to bring the weapon into the country.
Ecclestone confirmed he landed the plane, which was also carrying his wife Fabiana, who serves as the FIA's vice president for sport, at Tires Airport near the Cascais resort area outside Lisbon.
"All that happened is that I brought with me into the country a shotgun I'd been using in Switzerland for clay pigeon shooting, so I could take part in the sport in Portugal at a venue where an exhibition event was due to be held early next week," he said.
Ecclestone, who doesn't speak Portuguese, said he cleared customs, but police then asked him about the gun and requested the official documents, something he described as "unnecessary harassment."
In the end, his Brazilian-born wife traveled to Lisbon, accompanied by a customs official, to hand the shotgun over to the authorities.
"We went through all this, and the gun ended up with the authorities in Lisbon... I signed some documents as they asked," he said.
Portuguese newspapers were the first to report the incident, citing police sources, and confirmed that authorities found the shotgun during a routine inspection.
Ecclestone, a former racing driver who ran the commercial side of the sport for nearly 40 years until stepping down from the role in 2017, owns a home in the nearby tourist area.
The incident brings to mind a previous legal issue the Briton faced over an unlicensed weapon in Brazil, when he was briefly detained in 2022 for carrying a small handgun while boarding a private plane bound for Switzerland.
Ecclestone admitted at the time to owning the handgun but said he hadn't known it was in his luggage, describing the incident as "silly and trivial."
